


In Starlight

by mayachain



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Speciesism, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 02:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: Seven times Michael's issue with the race responsible for the attack on Doctari Alpha was addressed inadequately.





	In Starlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



> Dear Shadaras,  
> I hope this exploration of Michael Burnham brightens your holidays. Happy Yuletide!  
> \- your Yuletide writer.
> 
> Dear J,  
> thanks for your help and encouragement!  
> \- me

**In Starlight**   
  


**T'Pau**

“Breathe as I do,” T'Pau reminded. The healers had warned her against sounding 'harsh'. She could not judge if she had succeeded.

The girl’s eyes were bright and her huffing was loud as she strove to imitate T’Pau. The Elder knew Amanda Grayson was capable of the exercise. Even allowing for Michael's smaller size and smaller lungs, the simple patterns were well within the girl-child's reach.

T’Pau was not entirely convinced she was not wasting her time – yet the girl was earnest in her attempt to learn. Were it not so, T'Pau would never have substituted the incense most conductive to her own meditation for one that was harmless to humans. 

Any approximation of stillness they might be able to achieve would benefit her clan. It was T’Pau’s aspiration to limit the disaster that would spark from Sarek’s insistence that Michael Burnham be admitted to the Learning Center. 

The disaster would be so much more dire than it had to be if the girl’s temper could not be curbed. Only a portion could be attributed to her human nature, the healers declared, and Amanda Grayson had expressed hope that T’Pau would help her sort out which moods were her own. Allowing Michael Burnham to suffer whenever her brain misfired would be illogical.

T’Pau only hoped they would be able to help her at all. She was so… emotional. What had Sarek been thinking? Had he been thinking at all beyond his desire to please his second wife?

 

**Philippa**

Under the circumstances, Philippa had to say that Michael was integrating well with her crew. Her interpersonal skills needed work, true, yet had improved immensely since that first contentious day. Philippa remained gratified that Sarek had approached her about his ward. It did not hurt that the man had since noticeably stepped back.

Michael had passed every psychological test the Vulcan mind-healers had deemed appropriate for her, and eventually every test Starfleet required of its human officers. The only item that stood out persistently was a notation regarding a marked wariness of all things Klingon. Philippa trusted it was being addressed during counseling sessions.

Her ship’s very own Vulcan-trained Number One would likely never entirely lose the behavior Sarek had instilled in her. Regardless, Philippa and her crew were slowly dismantling her walls, helping her rediscover her feelings. Philippa looked forward to the person Michael would become once she’d reconnected with her human side. 

The young woman she was now had turned out every bit as curious as Philippa herself. As a captain, a mentor and a friend, Philippa delighted in watching Michael explore the galaxy. Fixing minor and not-so-minor problems throughout the quadrant was a glorious thing. Philippa reveled in the growth each new mission brought all of her crew, but Michael’s progress was a special joy.

Her chosen XO had overcome so much. What it all amounted to was a young woman who would be a wonderful captain someday soon, commanding her own starship, by sheer virtue of _being_ promoting the Federation's ideals.

  


**Amanda**

Stories were the one thing Amanda had found that were guaranteed not to subvert Sarek's attempts to integrate Michael into Vulcan society. They were teaching tools, culturally valuable, occasionally silly fancies – yet allowed even by the Vulcan Elders. And they would hopefully - _hopefully_ \- teach her foster daughter that despite being a lone human girl among Vulcans, she was not alone.

Amanda had done her best to introduce stories where the heroine found herself in an unknown situation and made the best of it. _Alice in Wonderland_ , _The Wizard of Oz_. _A Little Princess_ would be her first assay at broaching the subject of little girls that lost their parents. She fervently hoped that it would help instead of distressing Michael – and, inevitably, Spock. 

“There is nothing left for her on Earth or any human colony,” Sarek had proclaimed, and he hadn't been wrong. There was something for her here. Amanda loved her, here.

Sarek’s wife more than anyone understood the trial of living on an alien planet. Michael was so young, she would have a much easier time fitting in than Amanda herself had had. The advantage regarding the Vulcan languages alone! There were words Amanda would never be able to pronounce, her own son's name included, but Michael was coming as close as it was physically possible for a human.

Most, if not all books they read together took place on Earth. Michael would ask about the planet of her birth, would talk about her parents when she was ready. Until then, Amanda would fight her nightly sighs of relief whenever Michael listed ever so slightly into her… And she would pretend not to sense Sarek’s presence behind the door, _far too near_ said door to be coincidence whenever she, Spock and Michael were reading.

 

**Keyla**

Keyla caught the Commander wandering the ship at the oddest times, came across her meditating in the oddest places. More often than not she looked strangely tense in her tranquil poses, not that it was any of Keyla’s business. They weren’t friends. Surely Captain Georgiou knew about her XO’s mysterious nighttime activities. 

Being awake at the oddest hours never seemed to have an impact on her performance, so perhaps Saru was right and her time on Vulcan really had rid the Commander of an ordinary human’s need to sleep. Keyla could almost believe it, were it not for the occasional Away Mission where she could observe her superior utterly dead to the world until woken for her guard shift.

They weren’t friends. The Commander wasn’t really… personable. Burnham was capable of empathy; Keyla had seen it come to the fore when the _Shenzhou_ was confronted with civilians. Apart from the Captain, however, the crew seemed strictly stuck in a ‘work’ category. Commander Burnham let their ranks draw a very clear divide between them. Keyla saw no real reason to breach it.

And yet there were times… Keyla loved to fly, loved to explore. She loved being struck by the vastness that could change before her eyes in less than a second. _Nothing_ could beat the view from a starship’s bridge.

There were times when she and Commander Burnham shared a shift and she could almost make herself believe that there might be something like kinship between them. There were no words of chastisement if crewmen ignored the screens in favor of the panorama, then. If Keyla but looked, she would catch the same sense of wonder she herself felt on Burnham’s face.

 

**Sybok**

Moments like this tended to stand out long after Sybok had returned home: An accidental touch, a flinch, a barely-there look of horror on Michael's little face.

Sybok was not the touch telepath that Spock was, but even he could feel the girl's pain before and after. He didn't want to think about what these occurrences must do to Michael, for she was certainly smart enough to understand. Not only was she plagued by memories, every casual touch from her – which were far too rare already – had the potential to hurt Spock. And Spock – maybe Father thought it good practice for the boy, though if it was meant as practice to block or practice to avoid stayed unclear to the elder son. Sybok thought the dance cruel and unnecessary. Spock would learn to never touch another at this rate, an unhealthy prospect even for a full-blooded Vulcan. _Elder T’Pau_ was not hands-off to such an extreme.

Recently arrived on Vulcan, little Michael would have apologized profusely. Increasingly, words of regret and dismissal of the need of such were uttered in a stiff, ritualized way.

Life with his father’s family had helped Michael adjust after her parent’s death, but clearly it was also transforming the lively girl into someone – Where was the logic in forcing a human girl to act as a Vulcan? For Sybok's own little brother to be forced to choose when he was _both_? One would think that having married a human woman Sarek would see the value of other ways of being. 

Arguing with Sarek that there must be a more suitable way to salvage the children's tactile interaction would be futile. Sybok had long since given up on the notion. What he needed to find was a way for Michael to forget – not repress, clean forget – the horrors that she had seen before coming to live with them.

 

**Saru**

When it was far, far too late, Saru recalled the one and only time he had ever seen Commander Burnham behave like prey. She had grown utterly still, the _I’m not moving you can’t see me_ so perfect, Saru had hardly noticed her.

The topic of conversation had had to do with the Klingons, he was sure of it.

She would have rebuffed him had he remarked on her conduct, this much he knew. By then, the short time after she’d first come aboard when he’d believed they might find some commonality along the lines of instances of alienation had been long gone.

Saru had formed friendships at the Academy, on the _Shenzhou_ , and was making headway on the _Discovery_. He could and did get along with members of predator species. Commander Burnham had, quite simply, not been worth the stress. He’d hoped their working relationship would improve with time, but he had held no high hopes for it. It had been enough to know that even though she favored the Commander, Saru retained Captain Georgiou's respect.

Commander Burnham had been, was, a predator, brash and brilliant and utterly dismissive of Saru's contributions. She’d never let him forget that she’d graduated from the Vulcan Science Academy, that there was therefore nothing Saru could possibly know or come up with that she didn’t know already.

She would have gone far in Starfleet, of that Saru stayed forever utterly, frustratedly convinced.

 

**Michael**

During her third year at the Learning Center, Michael opened an investigation into every piece of information on the Klingon race that she could find. History, Biology, culture, diplomacy, warfare – there wasn’t much, there was _far too little_ , but every tidbit she found she scrutinized and filed away in her mind.

She could not have amassed as much data as she eventually possessed without Spock. The foster siblings had long found it a sound course of action to aid one another in becoming the best in their respective fields. In Spock’s words: “It is only proper that we both reach our goals.”

“All data is useful if processed the correct way,” had been her justification of her inquiries when she had approached Spock. They both pretended that he could not surmise the deeper reason: _If I accumulate enough knowledge about them, the nightmares will cease to distract me from my efforts to honor Sarek’s faith._

There were matters in the Learning Center’s database which Michael was not allowed to access. As the political situation stood, by virtue of being half Vulcan Spock had higher clearance than her. Obtaining what he could of the intel she needed was only logical.

When their side project was discovered, Lady Amanda embarrassed them both by showing pride over Michael's asking for help, over Spock's wanting nothing more than help his foster sister: “Even if I cannot agree with how you’ve gone about it.”

Every year Lady Amanda would light a candle in remembrance of the attack on Doctari Alpha. Michael believed she understood, privately, that all knowledge could become relevant someday. 

“Nothing worthwhile comes from dwelling on your past,” Sarek rebuked them both. Her protestations went unvoiced. The documentation of the First Contact between Vulcan and Qo’noS remained classified.

 

.


End file.
